Know Your Place

A friend, a daughter, a son, a sister, or a brother may share something with you that is as ill-advised as ever, but you must remember this: know your place.

Coming from a columnist, I get the irony, but if I can save you some heartburn or a few ruined relationships it’s worth it. 

Often, when someone tells us we should know our place it’s easy to resist because it’s someone telling us to be subservient and obedient in ways that just don’t jive with us. Trust me, I know. Over the years, if you had told me to know my place, whatever the situation, I’d have done the exact opposite. That’s still my compulsion. My whole family would agree. 

But with time, I’ve learned the critical importance of knowing your place, and how if that’s all you know and all you do, you’ll be helping someone else in ways you may not be able to fathom.

When one of my sons played Little League, I can still clearly remember the moment one of his teammates, who was in a slump, walked up to the plate. A good crowd was on hand, but the atmosphere was that relaxed baseball environment where the loudest sounds came from the ball slamming into the catcher’s mitt, the umpire making a call, a base coach shouting instructions, or an aluminum bat hitting the ball.

It was at that moment that the player’s mom yelled, so that every single person at the field could hear, “Don’t strike out this time!”

What do you think he did? Yep. He struck out, as he would go on to do more frequently for the rest of that season. I can only imagine what it was like for him on the car ride home, or at the dinner table in between games. The kid was actually a very good athlete, but after that season, he quit. 

We never had any incidents of note like that in our family.I knew what I liked when I played sports, and as a dad, I did the same. That meant I kept my mouth shut and let the people around me be fans and make the noise, which I liked. For me, I was going to try to just be a dad. People used to tell me how calm I was when my kids were in pressure situations, but that wasn’t the case at all. Sometimes people mistake quietness for calmness.

For four years, when my one son played college football, they had an end-of-year banquet every year where a long line of seniors would make heartfelt remarks. For four years, it was almost the same speech, one after the other. Every graduating senior remembered the people in their lives who never missed a game. They didn’t talk about the ones who cheered the loudest for them, or the ones who critiqued them most honestly. Very emotionally, they always recalled those who knew their place. And that place was just to be there—in the rain, in the cold, in victory, and in defeat.

My place on any field, home or away, was always that very back row of any stadium or gym, upper left corner. It helped me resist the urge to say things, but it also prevented me from hearing strangers or others deride my own kid if he was having a tough day. 

This all took learning and discipline on my part, and my teachers were parents of older players who shared their own tips with me. Did it help? Well, I can say my kids never felt like quitting. 

Knowing your place is invaluable in so many contexts, from Little League to the night my wife had to make life-and-death decisions for her father during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Decisions had to be made. Doctors were waiting. My wife’s mother wasn’t in any shape to make a coherent decision. She had fallen apart. Other family members were equally unreliable for decision-making. 

Academically, I could have done it. I had made these decisions before for my own parents. I knew what had to be done on that evening, but I kept my mouth shut. One of my kids asked me why I was staying in the background when things were a little chaotic. 

I told my oldest what I’m saying here. It wasn't my place to make these decisions for my wife’s father. As hard as it was to watch for me, I knew this was something my wife had to do, and she did. My role was a supporting one, not the lead. I wasn’t there to cause her to second-guess herself, I wasn’t there to debate, and I wasn’t there to instruct or try to sell one idea over another. I was there to help if asked. But whatever was decided had to come from my father-in-law’s wife and son and daughter. 

As a consultant for decades, I’ve always known my place. We could only make recommendations. The client had to make the final decision. It’s not that we aren’t involved in the decision-making. That’s precisely why we’re there most often. But the decisions themselves are not ours to make. Know your place. 

For me, one of the biggest challenges with this sort of thing has been dealing with those family members who seem to have a habit of almost always making the wrong choices. We’re talking about people who got themselves kicked out of school when they were young, divorced when they were young adults, and in financial messes later on. There’s a pattern to all of this. 

So, what do you do when they choose to ask you for advice? Or when they want help without advice? Or when they want just money without advice? It’s all you can do to hold back and not blast them with a dose of reality and tough love, detailing everything they’ve ever done to make their lives harder than necessary. But you don’t. You know your place. You tell them you love them, and you help them if you can, even when you know the most valuable thing you have to offer is advice they don't want and you know they’ll never take. 

I’m not sure if making mistakes is a good thing, but I’ve made enough to go around, and I have learned from them. I’m grateful for parents who sometimes knew that my mistakes were mine to make, not theirs to prevent. Nothing teaches like getting knocked on your can. 

I'm not saying never to help others. Just the opposite. Sometimes, the best way to help is to let people learn through experience and solve some of their own problems. I’ve had teachers, and coaches, and bosses who all took the same approach, and I’m still grateful to them. I’ve had friends who’ve done the same. 

A lot of us, especially conservatives, tend to be wired with an independent streak, so we want to win or lose on our own terms. We don’t want someone else telling us what to do, how to do it, or how not to do it. Leave us alone. We’ll figure it out one way or the other. 

Sometimes the best thing we can do for others is to take our own advice.